Ladies and Gentlemen, place your bets: November Surprise!

[Philocetes]

There has been much speculation that in November, Apple will make some sort of announcement relative to the fate of the Mac Pro. Let's have some fun geting your guesses in, possibly in time for bragging rights if you happen to accurately predict Tim Cook's next move. Don't be shy about giving your thinking on the matter, wry comments welcome.

If I could put another survey in, I would ask about how favorable each option would be--again, that's what comments are for.

For me, its a toss-up between a cylinder with newer parts or an iMac/Pro merge. Since I can't post a survey without the courage to designate a single guess, I will go with the iMac merge--reduces manufacturing costs, pretends to address mac pro user base. To me an undesirable option. My most desirable outcome would be the open source osx.

 

[koyoot]

Where did you get this information?

 

[theitsage]

“If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”
– Steve Jobs, before he returned to Apple [Fortune, February 1996]

 

[Philocetes]

Where did you get this information?

These are guesses. I have gotten many ideas for these guesses from people posting in this forum. I have no Apple information beyond complete speculation, informed by my own experience with companies and product lines.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I hope for the mini tower, expect an updated trash can. Late October, and not November though.

 

[koyoot]

These are guesses. I have gotten many ideas for these guesses from people posting in this forum. I have no Apple information beyond complete speculation, informed by my own experience with companies and product lines.

I was asking about this:

We have been assured that in November, Apple will be making some sort of announcement relative to the fate of the Mac Pro.

I hope for the mini tower, expect an updated trash can. Late October, and not November though.

Actually, November is quite right If I would have to guess. AMD Vega 10 architecture is supposed to be available for professional only market.

 

[Philocetes]

I was asking about this:

There have been people here posting that this may happen. I may have over-stated the certainty of a November announcement for artistic license, and to make a fun headline. I didn't mean to imply anything new.

PS: I updated the original post to make the speculative nature of this clear. I don't think that will detract from the fun--perhaps Tim Cook will read it and end his Hamlet-like uncertainty.

"To Pro or not to Pro, that is the question,
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of Mac Pro enthusiasts,
Or to make Upgrades against a Sea of troubles,
And by Updating end them"

 

[keysofanxiety]

Throw my $5 for a 64-core ARM Mac Pro with BTO of 128GB RAM & 10TB SSD.

Hey... gotta stay optimistic!

 

[h9826790]

Let me guess, something will be announanced on 27th Oct

 

[keysofanxiety]

Oh and just to keep some optimism -- Apple normally issue the media announcements about a week before the keynote. So I'd say the cutoff is late next week; if they don't send media announcements by then, we'll be looking at next month for new products.

 

[Philocetes]

It just occurred to me, it wouldn't be that hard for apple to make the trash can a little taller and put slots at the bottom for 4 2.5 inch sata drives that could be easily plugged in and taken out. Or maybe m.2 slots?
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These are guesses. I have gotten many ideas for these guesses from people posting in this forum. I have no Apple information beyond complete speculation, informed by my own experience with companies and product lines.

And yet knowing this, he never really followed through on it...

 

[telequest]

Oh and just to keep some optimism -- Apple normally issue the media announcements about a week before the keynote. So I'd say the cutoff is late next week; if they don't send media announcements by then, we'll be looking at next month for new products.

How long has it been since Apple actually held a Mac-centric media event, especially one highlighting the Mac Pro? (too lazy to research myself). Seems likely to me that we'll be lucky even to get a press release, or just a silent update (if there's ever an update at all).

 

[frou]

When Apple talked about the upcoming APFS filesystem, they said how in use it's going to scale from the Apple Watch to the Mac Pro. APFS is still in development, so to me that is an obvious forward-looking statement about the continued existence of the Mac Pro product line.

 

[Philocetes]

When Apple talked about the upcoming APFS filesystem, they said how in use it's going to scale from the Apple Watch to the Mac Pro. APFS is still in development, so to me that is an obvious forward-looking statement about the continued existence of the Mac Pro product line.

I am wondering, is this filesystem an answer to a question very few are asking? I can't imagine how it would do something I feel was missing in what I have now--more of a programming issue. Is this an apple response to ZFS--a more reliable but heavy and slow? I had it on a linux server, never warmed up to it for personal use. I am willing to be educated here, but as you can see, I am skeptical.

 

[Christian Schumacher]

is this filesystem an answer to a question very few are asking?

I doubt it, Mac OS X is very prone to directory corruption. I ain't no programmer but without the utility which fixes that -Disk Warrior - my professional life would've been a lot worse -meaning more data loss

 

[Philocetes]

I doubt it, Mac OS X is very prone to directory corruption. I ain't no programmer but without the utility which fixes that -Disk Warrior - my professional life would've been a lot worse -meaning more data loss

Interesting, I have never had directory corruption--to my knowledge... Maybe I should run that utility and see if there are issues that I am not aware of. I would hope apple would address this sort of thing within their existing file system--it already claims to be a journaling one. So, thanks for the new information.

PS: It looks like disk warrior is $120--ouch! Maybe I will just look at what can be done to verify the file system integrity from the command line using existing darwin functionality.

 

[LorenK]

I have no inside information and no clue about what Apple will be doing, but they need to do something, because while computers now represent a small portion of their revenue, it is a very important part of their ecosystem and the lack of updates to the desktops is a major source of frustration to their user base. While Steve Jobs may have thought that Mac had lost the battle, Apple computers still have an important role to play for Apple, and Tim Cook's failure to keep them up to date hurts Apple in the long term because it makes the company appear unreliable and out-of-touch with their user base. Frustration turns to indifference turns to Samsung passing them in other product sales as well. Apple is lucky that Samsung has sot itself in the foot with their battery issues, because the innovation in Samsung phones was threatening to make Apple an afterthought in phones as well. Apple needs a sense of urgency again, and Tim Cook seems to be too much the politician to understand his delays in updating product are hurting Apple.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Yeah Disk Warrior has saved lives so often.

It's Apple implementations of AFP and SMB on heavy corporate networks that really sucks compared to the competition.

 

[pigsyn]

It will officially put an end to topics like "Will there be a new Mac Pro in <insert year here> ?" forever.

 

[Hank Carter]

I'm expecting a special dongle that allows you to connect up to 10 iPad Pro and combine them into a single 'workstation'.

 

[ActionableMango]

My November Surprise Slogan:

Make the Mac Pro Great Again

 

[BornAgainMac]

Due to the aging Macs, my bet is Apple is going to ARM.

 

[cube]

Due to the aging Macs, my bet is Apple is going to ARM.

I think x86 sucks, but now that they made me switch from RISC, I am staying here.

 

[Christian Schumacher]

Interesting, I have never had directory corruption--to my knowledge... Maybe I should run that utility and see if there are issues that I am not aware of. I would hope apple would address this sort of thing within their existing file system--it already claims to be a journaling one. So, thanks for the new information.

PS: It looks like disk warrior is $120--ouch! Maybe I will just look at what can be done to verify the file system integrity from the command line using existing darwin functionality.

Apple is addressing the thing, hence the new file system, hey better late than never Of course, there are multiple improvements besides that, and will only contemplate the newer Mac OS rendering this oldie Mac OS Extended as a thing of the past. Ars Technica has a good round-up on Sierra and APFS, check it out.

Exchanging work with many co-workers and moving troves of data through a myriad of ways might be the culprit in this particular case of directory corruption and/or data loss, I don't know for sure, but I deal with it.

Yeah Disk Warrior has saved lives so often.

It's Apple implementations of AFP and SMB on heavy corporate networks that really sucks compared to the competition.

I'd have to agree with that.

 

[Philocetes]

Very interesting. I went to ars and read a nice technical article on the new file system. It sure looked like a lot of the SAN stuff I have been learning about for work. The author also contrasted a bit with ZFS--apparently the new apple thing will not checksum data like zfs does. Might be a bit heavy for home use, but to each their own needs.

I agree that apple's smb is le bad. I had a cifs file server set up using ubuntu server and the apple computer kept complaining about the wrong kind of authentication format or some such. Windows could read the share just fine. Ok, apple, its not your protocol, so just copy the open source code and make it so it works with other systems. There, I am sure Tim Cook is all over that one now that I brought it up.

AFP? Well, for the fun of it I did actually get an AFP share going on a nas--even had the time machine going to it, but the nas computer got re-purposed. Its regrettable that apple made time machine afp only, but boys will be boys when it comes to being proprietary and pretending that improves your product strength.

Personally, for my own use, not planning on moving to new releases of osx until there is something more compelling than a heavy new semi-san file system version 1.0. I am sure others have good reason to do otherwise.